First came reality. Second came knowledge of reality. Third is language about reality, through symbol or word.
To create symbols, Nature/Reality must be observed, so that the symbols reflect the natural science of observation in nature and its processes/systems.
First symbols are pictographs, then abstract lines and curves. Symbols are analogous references to reality through an image that represents reality (symbol).
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Download .mp3: Symbols, Reality, Knowledge, Belief and AttachmentSymbols represent reality, nature and phenomena in reality. Symbols are used to communicate about reality. Thousands of years ago symbols were created to reflect reality, either a factual aspect of reality, or imagined.
To communicate aspects of reality, requires the symbols used to represent aspects of reality in order to communicate those aspects of reality.
Ex: 4 Elements were created through a reflection of processes in reality.
We can see if schools of thought or teachings reflect reality accurately or not in their models and conceptions about reality. The model that most closely resembles reality, that most closely reflects and mirrors reality, that has more correspondences and syncretic factors, is the most accurate model to use as a foundation that most accurately reflects the reality we see with our eyes. Event A/Phenomena A, relates to Event B/Phenomena B, and we can analogize and correspond the two event through symbols. Picture symbols first, then abstract curvy lines. Direct observance of reality and nature reflected in symbols, then alterations towards abstract models less corresponded with natures visible processes.
Flawed models can be created, these flawed models were accepted as accurate instead of faulty, additional correspondences with reality were made based on these flawed models which creates a correspondence to support the flawed model and thereby providing a façade or an appearance that it is an accurate model based on observable facts of reality, when it is not and has contradictions. That is how the falsity of a flawed model can be perpetuated into the future, because it is accepted and corresponded with other aspects of reality that are used to conform to the flawed model, and thereby provide the appearance that it is constructed properly because it’s reflecting aspects of reality. Centuries and millennia can go by and the flawed model can still be used because no one is going back to reality to see how things start off at the root causal basic level of the phenomenon in nature that we can see, that were the original sources for deriving the symbolic references to reality and these models. The flawed models based on symbolic references to reality are perpetuated. Symbols can be interpreted in different ways to fit a model, but may not necessarily reflect the original root causal symbolic reference to reality that is ostensibly shown and easily visible and understood. Symbols feed into the abstractive power of our consciousness to see analogous correspondences between different phenomenon and events in reality.
Over time, the symbol knowledge of reality (factual or not) is interpreted as literal.Personifications of aspects of reality, of universals, are taken as literal, this is a flawed concept, a flawed model. Gods become real, animal gods are real, human gods are real, and new stories are written to reflect the literal interpretation, forgetting that the original symbols were just that, symbolic representations of reality.
People took the symbols as reality, because they do not understand why symbols were created in the first place. They do not understand that symbols create images in the mind to reflect understanding about reality in an analogous way. Mythopoeic narratives and stories were created to explain something in relation to something else. Phenomena A is corresponded to Phenomena B. They are related through the imagery in one phenomena or symbol representation, to another phenomena of symbol referencing an aspect of reality. Instead of understanding analogy and symbols, people take these personifications of reality and ourselves, as literal representations of what ‘is’ in reality. Knowledge of ourselves and reality gets perverted into literal stories of history and the past, forgetting the understanding of knowledge that leads to wisdom.
Knowledge and Belief
To know something is to be able to verify it through reality and nature. If you cannot ostensibly point to something that expresses a body of knowledge, you cannot know that the body of knowledge really exists as a truth. A body of knowledge is simply information. You cannot claim to know something is real and existing as a truth simply because it is contained in a body of knowledge as information. Information can contain both truth and falsity (disinfo, misinfo, etc.).To know requires a “dividing” and “cutting” (scire, to know, science) and “collecting” (logos, *leg-) of pieces within reality that are based in objective ostensible particular manifestations in reality.To hold a concept in the mind does not make it something known as a fact of reality. When we areinduced with a concept, a belief, an idea, this is a body of knowledge that we are aware of, we know of the existence of the body of knowledge, and we can say we know that knowledge. But it is a very different case to say that you know something is true, that you know it exists. Existence is based in the objective reality of the universe which contains extant objects. A concept, idea or belief that can never be ostensibly proven cannot be said to be known in truth or fact of reality. It is a conceptual model, a conceptual framework, that provides us with a correspondence to reality to try to provide us with answers. If we simply induct particulars to a general universal, that is an invented imagination about how the pieces fit together. In order to verify if that imagined concept is an accurate representation of reality, deduction needs to be engaged in to verify its accuracy with reality. If another model, conceptual framework, provides more clarity by being more grounded in reality, then it has more data points of connectivity to reality, and therefore it has more veracity in the truth of reality that exists.
Level II Truth as a “Transcendental Being” is an ideal, perfect concept or idea that we aspire to as a better, improved state of being, especially compared to embodiments of the negation of the “Transcendental Being”, which would be falsity, evil, etc. We can conceive of truth, love, good, right, morality because they are aspects of “Transcendental Being” expressed through non-transcendental beings in objective reality we can ostensibly see expressing the good, truth, morality, etc. We can have an idea of the ideal and work towards it. The aspects of “Transcendental Being” can be tied back to objective reality through the manifestations of the particular individual extant beings in objective reality. Extant particular objects in reality are not universals, but they contain universals within them. We can induce from aspects of reality the hidden existence of universals. Reality itself does not contain a universal, such as human, animal, love or truth as an object in itself. Universals do not exist in themselves in objective reality. Universals only exist through particularized individual extant objects in objective reality.
Level II Truth is discovered in the subjective reality of human consciousness. Human consciousness is an abstraction engine that can pierce through the veil of physical material particulars and see the metaphysical immaterial universals within. We have a strong capacity forimagination and creativity. Simply inducing a universal image in our mind from the particulars of reality, does not constitute a truth. We need to further verify our imagined universals that we think we see in reality through deduction by bringing our universal or general concept back down to grounded reality. We need to find more data points in objective reality to create a connection with the universal we have discovered in our subjective reality of consciousness. This is where wealign our perceptions and conceptions with objective reality. This is what logic is for, to induce and more importantly to deduce and verify our imagined concepts. The more aspects of reality we can grasp and create connections between the data set of reality and the universal general concepts, the more correspondence we have to validate that concept and increase its veracity as a truth. If the concept is true, the universal will be applicable to all related aspects of particularized reality. If a universal is not true, the applicability to aspects of reality that should work, will not work. This can only be discovered through deduction back down to reality to see if our universal is universally applied to those things we first induced from. A universal is a universal because it applies to all the particulars that it’s supposed to apply to. An example of a false induction is if I say “All bald men are grandfathers. Harold is bald. Therefore, Harold is a grandfather,” may be a valid grammatical and logical structure of language, but it is not a true statement. It is an inductive logical statement, but once we engage in deductive logic we see that it fails veracity in reality.
Many people engaged in the simple and easy form of induction, where we simply receive aspects of reality and imagine things that we think we see from reality, but they do not engage in the more difficult and laborious task of verifying if there imagined ideas, concepts and beliefs are accurate universals or general concepts. In failing to do so, people believe whatever they want to believe as truth, rather than going through the hard work to accept objective reality as the truth over any subjective belief that cannot be connected back down to the grounded reality and demonstrated through all the applicable particulars that are said to support that universal or general concept. We can easily see the ostensible extant objects in reality, but when we imagine and conceive of things that are not directly perceivable to the senses, we can get lost in pure speculation and imagination with beliefs that are ungrounded in reality. This creates a structure of beliefs that correspond with each other and support each other but are not actually grounded in reality, they only have a semblance of grounding in reality because of the imagination that inducted a particular aspect of reality and derived that general or universal concept. If your belief, idea or concept cannot be traced back to reality, and grounded in reality in some way, then it is likely pure fantasy belief, or at best you simply can’t prove it yet, and therefore it is not a “known” truth or fact, but a belief.
Many symbols are personifications of knowledge about ourselves and reality. Later, these personifications are taken as literal, as literal gods with personalities and identities of their own because that is how they have been described in narratives and stories, as personifications and anthropomorphized symbols in order for us to understand concepts with reference to reality and ourselves. This is also why there are the symbols of the four elements. Later on people thought that the four elements were actually four elements that make up reality. This is because they do not understand symbols and story narratives. People interpret things as literal. People do not understand the symbols and stories that illustrate aspects of ourselves and of reality. Yes, thefour elements do “create” reality, but only when you understand what they represent, which isour desire or care through fire, our thoughts in air, our time and deeds to effectuate change as water, and the resulting consequences that we produce in reality as the earth (effects). But this is not understood, and the symbols and narratives are taken to be literal. This is exactly what happened with gods. It can even be shown historically how the monotheistic conceptions of a literal God originated in the personification of many gods to represent aspects of reality, including ourselves. This was done with human personification as well as animal embodiments to represent certain characteristics and qualities. Look into history that we have available.
We cannot simply believe whatever we want to believe, in fantasy concepts that are not grounded in reality. This is the problem with all of recent history that is recorded. It is demonstrable how beliefs in fantasy create problems. Person1/Group1 believe Fantasy1, Person2/Group2 believes in Fantasy2, and they are each identified with their respective beliefs, and therefore become attached to them as significant aspects in their self-image and worldview. They are both ignorant of grounding their beliefs in reality, and they remain fantasies of subjective reality each respective one holds onto for dear life. They are ignorant and believing whatever they want because it serves an aspect of their identity and personality. Their belief is “true”, while the other one is false. They will fight for the belief, because it is fighting for their self-image and worldview, and therefore fighting for themselves. It is “death” to their ego-personality-identity construct if their belief is destroyed. If their belief is destroyed, they are destroyed. They willfight to the death (or argue a lot) to preserve themselves and their belief. But none of it is grounded in reality to be proven, it is mere speculation and belief in an idea, belief in imagesthat have been induced into their minds, into the imaginal phantasmal realm of mind whereby they are invoked (like a spell that is cast) with images that they attach to.
This is magic of language and symbols, creating images through symbols and inducing them into the minds of men to have them accept the ungrounded belief as reality. The subjective phantasmal image in their mind that has been induced by a sorcerer/priest/dark occultist, etc., isnow an important way they understand themselves and reality, and they cannot let go of it. This belief has filled a hole created by the doubt and insecurity of a question. Or if there was no question before, they have been provided with an answer to a question they did not know they were asking. If the answer is removed from their self-image and worldview, if the free-floating, ungrounded belief is destroyed, they will have no foundation to stand upon, and they will fall from the fantasy free-floating belief down to the ground and shatter. They did not build their understanding of reality or themselves from grounded truth in reality. They built themselves up (ego-personality-identity) from beliefs that are not based in grounded reality, and the fall from that high hurts! The more ungrounded belief are corresponded and create a structure of free-floating beliefs, the more difficult it is for people to let go, and the more attached they are to this structure to sustain the self-image and worldview they have constructed, the sense of self and sense of reality they have developed. When this is challenged, people get mad and angry (cognitive dissonance), and need to defend it, because it is seen as a challenge and an attack on themselves. They need to defend the idea/belief because it has become them! They have accepted belief as reality, unreality as reality, and have become a false self, with false self-images and false worldviews.
People believe whatever they want to believe from their subjective reality because it provides comfort to have an answer to a question, there is the removal of uncertainty and doubt, and this a “feel-good” comfort. Objective reality does not matter as much as the comfort that the belief provides. People believe what they want to believe because it helps to make sense of the world, by providing answers, even if they are false answers they often are comforting and sounds good and feel good.
When you recognize the detrimental effect that beliefs can have upon our grounding and operation in reality, upon our ability to perceive, conceive, understand and navigate reality, then you no longer want to be attached to any subjective beliefs, but you work to remove any ungrounded beliefs from attachment so that you can see reality correctly, so that the objectivity is not masked by your subjective attachment to a belief that prevents you from seeing reality as it is. You do not want beliefs, you want truth based in objective reality. Beliefs can remain as possibilities but they are not verified or proven actualities. An idea does not represent the basic truth Level 1 of reality or the ideal Truth Level 2, it is an idea or concept or belief in your mind that may or may not be true. Until it is verified, it is a possibility, and can be a working model to try to make sense of things, but it is not a known truth or known fact until it can be accurately verified over and over.
Speaking words induces images and concepts into the mind of the receiver, which can be valued and attached to. This concept now has power and influence over you and your ability to perceive reality correctly. A belief in something you did not verify, or possibly cannot verify fully in order for it to be known (i.e. trust), and will take hold of you and prevent you from objectively being able to see the holes and problems in the concept. You become blinded by your attachment. This is what happens with all of the religions in the world, taking in induced feel-good images about an afterlife, immortality, heaven, etc. When you are comforted with that answer for death, uncertainty and insecurity, you get attached to it.
From infographic:
Attachment to Images/concepts/beliefs without continual verification and correspondence blinds your vision/sight of reality as it ‘is’ when new info comes to light.
You are attached to a belief, and are blind to other things as a result. The phantasm in your mind of the belief has a hold on you, it has power and influence over you through your valuation of its importance in your worldview or self-image. This valuation is the attachment and identification of yourself with the belief/concept/idea. It is best to not form attachments to beliefs since they are unverifiable in reality.
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Written by: Kris Nelson (@krnel), for Evolve Consciousness / Trivium Method